Humans

Ministers meet — work on the movement of goods
Also work on the movement of capital
Also work on the movement of human beings
As if we were so many cattle

Grim travellers in dawn skies
See the beauty — makes you cry inside
Makes you angry and you don’t know why
Grim travellers in dawn skies

Twelve mercenaries got weapons primed
Gonna take that African nation in record time
You wonder why they bother, why not leave it alone
They say, “Every man wants to retire to a place he can call his own”

Those grim travellers in dawn skies
See the beauty — makes them cry inside
Makes them angry and they don’t know why
Grim travellers in dawn skies

Redness, richer than a rose
Blooms against the backdrop of somebody’s white clothes
Bitter little girls and boys from the Red Army Underground
They’d blow away Karl Marx if he had the nerve to come around

They’re just grim travellers in dawn skies
See the beauty — makes them cry inside
Makes them angry and they don’t know why
They’re grim travellers in dawn skies

Down on the plain of 10,000 smokestacks
Trucks butt each other to establish dominance
The newspaper next to me leans over and says matter-of-factly
“Sacred mountains towers above meadows” – uh huh – and above us

Above the dark town
After the sun’s gone down
Two vapour trails cross the sky
Catching the day’s last slow goodbye
Black skyline looks rich as velvet
Something is shining
Like gold but better
Rumours of glory

Smiles mixed with curses
The crowd disperses
About whom no details are known
Each one alone yet not alone
Behind the pain/fear
Etched on the faces
Something is shining
Like gold but better
Rumours of glory

You see the extremes
Of what humans can be?
In that distance some tension’s born
Energy surging like a storm
You plunge your hand in
And draw it back scorched
Beneath it’s shining like
Gold but better
Rumours of glory

So I find out what the luxury of hate is
As exciting maybe as doing the dishes
Face toward window — light received
You walk away to see a film
See some people see a man
Stab in throat twist in gut all too clear
Not too new — all been done before
Planet breathes exhaustion
Staggers on
Wnemy anger impotent gun grease
Too many thoughts
Too dogshit tired
One small step for freedom
From foregone conclusion

You get bigger as you go
No one told me — I just know
Bales of memory like boats in tow
You get bigger as you go

You get bigger as you go
Spent all day afraid to talk
Redneck children laugh out loud
I being target live and walk

You get bigger as you go
Telephone snarls “don’t touch me”
You move in waves like the midnight blues
You vector of this weird dis-ease

You get bigger as you go
News reruns — dawn comes rainbow
Pain takes shape of grimy window
You get bigger as you go

Sun went down looking like the eye of God
Behind icy mist and stark bare trees
Inside the dim empty cinema two guys in leather jackets
Glance at each other and shiver
“They never built these places with winter in mind”
Out the window down the gray road
You can see old walled monastery
Now become a barracks for the paramilitary police

I saw an old lady’s face once on a Japanese train
Half lit, rich with soft luminosity
She was dozing straight upright head bobbing almost imperceptibly
Wheels were playing fast in 9/8 time
Her husband’s friendly face suddenly folded up in a sneeze
Across the straight a volcano flew a white smoke flag of surrender

In a Roman street on a full moon night
I was sick and there was a young cop in a circle of yellow light
As we drew near he snapped the safety off his machine pistol
And slid a trembling finger to the trigger
I wanted to say something calming but couldn’t catch his eye
He didn’t want contact — he was trained to see movement
“Well don’t shoot me, man, I’m a graceful slow dancer
I’m just a dream to you not real at all”

I wonder if I’ll end up like Bernie in his dream
A displaced person in some foreign border town
Waiting for a train part hope part myth
While the station changes hands
Or just sitting at home growing tenser with the times
Or like that guy in “The Seventh Seal”
Watching the newly dead dance across the hills
Or wearing this leather jacket shivering with a friend
While the eye of God blazes at us like the sun…

They’re getting prepared to haul a car out of the river
Noise and smoke and concrete seem to be going on forever
Grinding gears and drivers getting high on exhaust
I’m thinking about the water down below and what got lost

Oh Tokyo — I never can sleep in your arms
Mind keeps on ringing like a fire alarm
Me and all these other dice bouncing around in the cup
Did you have to show me that accident scene
Didn’t I get enough shaking up?
Still I’m gonna miss you…

Dragon of good fortune struggles with trickster fox
Energy and patience and the power of the buck
Tonight I’m flying headlong
To meet the dark red edge of dawn
I know somebody will be crying
And somebody will be gone

Oh Tokyo — I never can sleep in your arms
Mind keeps on ringing like a fire alarm
Me and all these other dice bouncing around in the cup
Did you have to show me that accident scene
Didn’t I get enough shaking up?
Still I’m gonna miss you…

Ranked by many as Bruce Cockburn’s best album, Humans is a watershed release in the acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter’s stellar career. Humans represented the first of Cockburn’s more electric, rock-oriented releases, after the trilogy of acoustic jazz folk recordings that culminated in 1979’s Dancing in the Dragon’s laws. The latter produced the reggae-flavored “Wondering Where The Lions are,” which became a Top 40 hit in both Canada and the United States. Where “Lions” featured the rhythm section of Jamaican star Leroy Sibbles ‘group. Humans’ anthemic “Rumours of Glory,” with its bouncy bass, added the reggae legend himself on backup vocals. Cockburn, wielding an electric guitar and backed by such new band members as violonist Hugh Marsh and keyboardist Jon Goldsmith, infused the entire album with a tougher, more uptempo sound.